Hues of Red and Shades of Blue
by o Sweet Disposition o
Summary: Is a mockingjay supposed to rise from the ashes like the phoenix? Or do I sink into the ocean of blood I helped to create? This is not how it was supposed to end. (OR the rebellion fails, Squad 451 is caught, now they must face the consequences). Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I own nothing but my words and ideas.

* * *

This is not how it was supposed to end.

Squad 451 was supposed to make it to Snow's palace, I was supposed to assassinate him, we were supposed to be the winners; we weren't supposed to be caught.

If you look at it on the other hand, Boggs, Mitchell, Jackson, Leeg 1 and 2, Castor, Messalla, Homes, Finnick- none of them were supposed to die either. But they did. All for me and this stupid made up mission. We should have turned back when we had the chance, but we didn't.

All around me is fog, rubble, death. Is a mockingjay supposed to rise from the ashes like the phoenix? Or do I sink into the ocean of blood I helped to create?

We are brought to the feet of President Snow.

This is my end. He will kill me now.

For some odd reason, I do not die that day.

* * *

Peeta is screaming. He screams and screams and screams.

No one is touching him.

I think it must be the fact that we're here, in the dungeons of the capitol, Peeta's prison from those months long ago. This is where they changed him. Where he watched countless people suffer and die. Where they took the boy with the bread away from me with their tracker jacker poison.

I scream too.

* * *

We wait.

Peeta, Gale, Cressida, Pollux, and I.

The remaining five from our force of fourteen soldiers. Squad 451- the Star Squad. None of us look much like stars now.

Tortured, starving, dirty, hurting, almost dead- but not quite.

Pollux is scared, he sits at the front of his cell, hiding from the inevitable darkness surrounding us all, mouth open in a scream that will never be heard.

Cressida is anxious. I can see it in her eyes, in her breath, and in her shaking body. I have tried speaking to her, she mumbles incoherently about getting set for the next promo to film, or that I ought to get ready, or asking where her camera equipment is. She cries a lot.

Gale is angry. I believe he is the only one of us left with a will, a hope driving him to fight for freedom, still after all this time. He has always had fire rushing through his veins, rather than blood.

Peeta just screams. Every waking hour. I don't know what he feels- trapped, sad, scared- if the capitol doesn't kill him, his own mind surely will. The memories, real and fake, racing through his mind cause him to jerk around, to hit his head against the bars, to scream, and shake, sometimes roaring at me to kill him, please, please kill, and other times, accusing me of trying to kill him, or wondering who I am. Sometimes, before we fall asleep, I can see the old Peeta peeking through, for just a few brief seconds; he asks me what my favorite type of bread is (the round ones, I say) and asks me his favorite color, (I tell him it's orange like the sunset).

Me? I should be dead, I don't know why I'm not. I'm living life in hues of red, stuck in this prison, gradually growing crazier by the day. I wonder if maybe they plan to let us starve to death, leave us to rot down here. It seems too easy. This is the capitol, I am the Mockingjay, there is no way I will not face a gruesome creative end.

* * *

I have no idea how long it has been when peace keepers storm the prison. Only Gale managers to walk out, and even he walks with a limp. The rest of us are carried away on stretchers.

The sunlight is blinding after being away for so long. I cannot see anything, I feel dead, and so the world must be too. I close my eyes.

When I open them again, I am lying alone on the floor of President Snow's office. The smell hits me first- sickening white roses, my stomach retches, and I gag, but there's nothing in my stomach to come out. In front of me, sits the president himself.

"Hello Ms. Everdeen, I am here to inform you that your little rebellion has failed, the Capitol has prevailed."

"Why haven't you killed me yet?" I croak.

"Oh do not worry Ms. Everdeen, your end will come, but as our late Heavensbee said, at the right place, and at the right time."

I pass out.

* * *

The wall are white, people are moving all around me.

Am I dead?

I try to assess, by sitting up. A harsh flash of pain races through my stomach, it forces me back down again.

I know then, I must be dreaming at least. I am laying where I have twice before, I would know this place anywhere. I am in the training complex in the capitol, where tributes go to get "prettied up", before doing the chariot rides.

"Well, we have a lot of work to do on this one." Someone says beside me, they are met with hums of agreement.

I close my eyes. This dream is a rather nice, compared to my usual ones of district twelve, being buried alive- suffocated in ashes by the people I love.

The feeling of having all of my leg hair ripped out brings me back to the present. I jerk up. I am still in the training center, a stylist team swarmed around me. I wonder what is happening. I look at my arms- they're clean, clear of scars. I look down to see my naked body is pale, minus my usual array of battle wounds.

I come to the conclusion that for some odd reason, the President wants me to look like something other than a half dead zombie. Something big is about to happen, I can feel it.

* * *

I stand on the stage beside six other people, Enobaria, Beetee, Annie, Johanna, Haymitch, and Peeta. We are the remaining victors, all which is left of what once was a vast group of people. President Snow stands ahead of us, reeking like blood and roses, and before him, a packed audience of cheering capitol citizens.

This is it.

"For our 76th Hunger Games, we have a special surprise," He begins.

I can almost guess what is about to happen.

"Since last year's quarter quell had such an… abrupt ending," he pauses to look back at the group of us.

All of us understand at once.

"The remaining victors shall compete in this year's Hunger Games."

I feel a rush of déjà vu. I am back in my living room in district twelve, I watch as the President speaks nearly those exact words almost one year ago. I don't think life could be any more different now.

All around me, my fellow victors react.

Some collapse and scream- Annie.

Some yell in outrage- Haymitch, and Enobaria.

Some try to lunge at President Snow- Johanna.

And some just stand like me, in utter shock, already too dead on the inside to care.

Peeta somehow manages to do the first three all at once.

The curtains close quickly. In an instant, peace keepers surround us. I don't fight. I am done fighting.

* * *

The usual ritual of the Hunger Games does not happen. No chariot rides, no training, no interviews, we stay in our rooms.

I am back in the same room I had before, with the bed Peeta and I once laid in, before this war began, before the hijacking, and before I became the logo for the rebellion. Was it all worth it? The slaughter, hardships, death?

Nothing has changed.

Late at night, as nightmarish visions race behind my eyelids, I hear a knock on the door.

"Come in!" I shout.

Peeta stands before me, ashy blonde hair strewn out in all directions, sunken cheeks, and too pale skin. His eyes are clouded over, they move wildly around the room - but they are still the same comforting shade of blue. I wonder why he's here, I wonder if he is having one of his attacks, I wonder if he will try to kill me.

At this point I don't care. I pat a place beside me on the bed.

He sits down, staring blankly out the window.

"You came back for me in our first Hunger Games, real or not real?"

This surprises me, we have not played this game since the mission with squad 451, and usually when he did ask about our Hunger Games, all he remembers is shiny memories of me trying to kill him.

"Real." I respond.

"We thought we were done, but then we had to go back in again. Real or not real?"

"Real." I say, "And you volunteered for Haymitch."

He continues on, "You abandoned me in our second Hunger Games."

"Not real." I mumbled, although it was somewhat true. I did abandon him when I left in District 13's hovercraft.

"We're going back in the games."

"Real." I say morosely, "for the third time."

"This time we aren't getting out." He says, his white knuckles grip the bed sheets like he is holding on for his life.

"Real." I whisper.

We sit like this, in silence until dawn approaches; we watch as the blackness fades to hues of blue and pink, and bright orange and yellow streaks of color begin to appear. Finally, all at once, a rim of gold sun peaks up from behind the horizon.

"Sunset orange." Peeta states. I look over at him, "That's what you called my favorite color when I asked you in the Capitol prison."

"That's what you told me it was on our train ride, during the first day of our victory tour." I reply.

"Yours is green?" He questioned.

It think it through, green like the trees in District 12, my home- now the place of dead bodies and ashes. I cannot find it in myself to love the place I only live in in nightmares.

"It was, but now it's blue." I look into his eyes, familiar, comforting, and so blue. A smile lights up his face. Peeta Mellark: broken, crazy, messed up- but deep down, there's still a little piece of the boy I knew, the one who loved me, who was kind, and caring. The boy with the bread is in there somewhere.

I lean in slowly.

The kiss feels like more of a promise of more hellos than a last goodbye.

It's the kiss of fireworks and passion on the beach of the clock arena all over again.

* * *

The sunlight burns my eyes, as I am raised onto my platform.

Barren landscape.

Dust.

Nothing in sight for miles except a vastness of nothing, and a gleaming cornucopia.

There are seven of us playing, only one can win, I will not be one of them.

"_10"_

I look over at Peeta, standing on the plate beside me.

"_9"_

He turns towards me, ashy blonde hair blowing in the wind.

"_8, 7, 6" _

Our eyes meet.

"_5"_

I nod to him.

"_4"_

He smiles at me.

"_3" _

This is it. All of this began when Peeta and I tried to commit suicide in the Hunger Games, and it will all end the same way.

"_2"_

We step off our plates.

"_1"_

A gong sounds in the distance, signifying the beginning of the 76th Hunger Games.

My name is Katniss Everdeen, I am seventeen years old, I am the Girl on Fire, I am the Mockingjay, I was the symbol of a rebellion, I lived through a war, fought in two Hunger Games, this is my third, and this is my end.


End file.
